League of Legends’ recent Patch 13.22 brought significant changes to Janna, but unfortunately, the champion is now experiencing a decrease in her win rate. Riot Games has been focusing on addressing champions that perform well in some areas but struggle in others, and Janna was one of them. However, the adjustments made to her kit have not yet resulted in the desired success.
In Patch 13.22, Riot aimed to address the concerns of Janna players by reevaluating her role in the evolving meta. They wanted to shift her away from a “low-interaction” disengage playstyle and reintroduce her as a more active enchanter. This involved reverting some changes made to her last year. However, this shift back to a playstyle that hasn’t been favored for over a year has made it challenging for Janna. Her win rate currently sits at around 50%, which is four percent lower than the previous patch.
In Patch 12.2, Janna underwent a significant overhaul that changed her identity from an aggressive enchanter with strong poke and support capabilities to a champion focused solely on disengaging enemies. Riot felt that her supportive abilities were too strong at the time, leading to adjustments in her E and ultimate, as well as impacting her itemization. However, with the evolution of the game since then, Riot decided to reevaluate Janna’s playstyle and found that her previous identity could be reintroduced without compromising her new role as a counterpick against dive and frontline-heavy compositions.
Unfortunately, players had become accustomed to Janna’s new playstyle, making it difficult to determine the optimal way to play her now. The changes to Janna’s kit have brought power back to her W, Zephyr, which serves as her primary poking tool. Her passive has also been updated to allow bonus magic damage with both her W and auto attacks, scaling with her movement speed. This opens up new build paths for Janna, leading players to experiment with whether a traditional W-max build or a more supportive E-max build, which has been the standard for over a year, is superior.
Despite the challenges, these changes have generated excitement among League players, not just those who have been eagerly awaiting updates for Janna. Her pick rate has increased to seven percent from three percent in Patch 13.22. With more time, players will likely discover where Janna stands in the current state of the game and whether these reverts to her abilities have given her the edge she needs to outperform her competition.
Source: DOTESPORTS
